Lost In Pacific Time

“Stop looking at me like I’m crazy,” I tell Milan as I pour my roughly chopped onion into the sauté pan.

“It just seems kind of ridiculous to me why you would cook when you have 24 hour room service a phone call away and a restaurant 55 floors away.” He says from his spot on the couch.

“Well maybe I wanted to impress you,” I say loving the smells of the onions caramelizing.

“What are you making?” Milan asks picking up on the scent.

“Grilled Cheese sandwiches,” with caramelized onions, a recipe was a lot like a designing a room: it needed something to anchor it and a little contrast is always nice. Actually everything was kind of like interior design. Suddenly my BlackBerry begins ringing loudly from inside my Birkin bag.

“Milan can you stir the onions for me I have to take a call?” Milan nods and grabs the wooden spoon from my hands.

“Hello?” I say as I soon as I’m out of earshot.

“Hello? Ms. Li?” says the male voice on the other end.

“That’s me,” I say into the phone.

“Hi, it’s George, the contractor you hired to expand your offices by combining your two buildings.”

“Hi George”

“I’m afraid we have some bad news…”

“Go on,” I say trying to stay positive, but what if my building burned down, we’d be right back to working from my house which was never much fun and I was always too tempted to take a nap.

“I know you and your staff were looking forward to starting your work next Tuesday but I’m afraid we’re run into some bumps along the road and the project won’t be finished until Wednesday the week after.”

I sigh, I was starting to miss work and stuff but now it looked like I’d have to wait a little longer. “Okay, well I guess I’ll go and tell everyone they get an extra week of vacation time.”

“What’s the new?” Milan asks as I send a mass text to everyone involved, including the Bravo staff.

“I’m staying an extra week,” I say looking inside the sauté pan. Milan seems to have done a pretty decent job.

“You don’t look too happy about it,” Milan says handing me back the spoon.

“I rent out my apartment the other days in the year when I’m not using it so I’m going to get kicked out on Monday.” I tell Milan. I put the onions off the stove and spoon then into a bowl.
“You can stay with me,” Milan says almost automatically.

“Are you sure?” I ask, I wouldn’t want to impose if he decided to christen his home by sleeping with half of Vancouver.

“Of course,” Milan says as I place the bowl of onions in front of him.

I take a thick slice of bread and slather one side with butter and the other with the onions from the bowl.

“You’re going to be here to see me win the cup,” Milan says with a cheeky smile. “this calls for a celebration.”

I groan “What kind of celebration?” all I want is to eat a grilled cheese sandwich, watch some Project Runway and call it a day.

“Ambrosia Li, you and I are going to hit the clubs.” He says with a huge smile on his face.

“I’ve never been to a club,” I answer honestly. I mean I had received offers, lucrative offers, for club appearances but getting dolled up and entering a dark sweaty room with loud music wasn’t really my scene. I mean the whole dark sweaty room with loud music was exactly why I didn’t shop at Hollister. That and the fact that a predominantly teenage sales staff usually intimidated me.

“Well once again Amber, I am here to take your virginity and open your eyes to new experiences”

“You did not just say that” I blush and try to hide behind my hair.

“But I did” he says with a smirk directed my way.

The club was packed and I could see it all from where I was sitting. The combination of Milan and I had gotten us past the line and into the VIP section up above the dance floor. Milan was currently down below at the bar getting us drinks and occasionally chatting with the girls in sparkly yet skimpy outfits who approached him.

“Hey,” Milan said bringing the drinks and two of the aforementioned girls to the table “Amber this is Sarah and this is Misty” Milan says gesturing to the two girls who sat down on the other side of the table.

They looked a lot like every other girl in LA: caked on makeup and limp platinum blonde hair. Even worse it looked like they were actually trying to look that way. “Hi”

“Hey,” the two of them say sipping their colorful drinks that are probably worth more calories than they’ve had all day.

“You’re on TV right?” asks the one named Mindy or something.

“Yeah, I am” I reply “I’m the weathergirl on channel 15” I lie sipping on my virgin mojito which is really just minty tasting 7Up.

“Oh,” she turns back to her friend, Stacy or something. “I totally think we should totally try to get with that Lucic guy I mean how many girls can say that they’ve slept with a professional hockey player”

Well I could but that wasn’t exactly something you got a certificate for.

“He brought us up here, he’s obviously interested in one of us.” Stacy half whispers. She looks over at me while I purposely avoid her eye contact and pretend to not be eavesdropping.

“Do you want in?” asks Mindy

“In on what?” I ask wondering if they have some sort of business going on.

“Trying to get Milan to take us home” says Stacy taking another sip of liquid courage.

“No” I reply automatically, the Mindy and Stacy didn’t exactly look like the cleanest girls.

Where was Milan? I was ready to leave, alone. My first clubbing experience had kind of been a letdown, I didn’t know how to dance all sexily like the other girls, I didn’t drink, and I didn’t want to be spending my night entertaining Milan’s conquests.

“Hey,” I say pulling Milan aside.

“Yeah Amber?” Milan slurs and he kind of reeks of beer.

“I think I’m going to call it a day.” I tell him finishing up my drink.

“I mean it’s the best I could do, it’s a Thursday night after all. Really, Misty and Sarah don’t do it for you?”

“What do you mean?” I ask him pulling down the hem of my sequined dress.

“I brought them here for you.” Milan says looking at Mindy and Sarah who are currently sloppily making out.

Why would he bring them to me? It wasn’t even like he was trying to use them to make me jealous. I look back at Mindy and Sarah, Milly and I were never big on PDA but was that what we looked like from the outside when we were kind of dating. Then it hit me, Milan had heard about Mindy and I. Even though the story had blown over and everyone had moved on, clearly Milan hadn’t.

“I have to go,” I say, grabbing my clutch and walking over to the stairs.

“See you tomorrow Amber?” Milan asks.

“Yeah I’ll see you” I say deciding to come clean to Milan tomorrow, when he wasn’t so … wasted.

It was cold outside but I could bare it for seven blocks or so. Neither Milan and I had driven to the club so I didn’t have to worry about him driving drunk and putting the people on the road in danger.

The streets were pretty empty and I was kind of scared that I might run into trouble. It didn’t take me long to get out of the slightly shady entertainment district and into brightly lit Coal Harbour. Besides the giant sign, you knew you were in Coal Harbour when the buildings started having doormen in front of them. I walked through the Fairmount Pacific Rim doors and into the empty lobby. In the center of the room was a table topped with, towers of pillows, trays of cookies and ceramic mugs of milk. It was for the children who were having issues sleeping in a different bed than they were accustomed to at home. I grabbed some cookies for myself and a cup of warm milk.

As I walked into my living room and from the floor to the ceiling windows it was so dark outside I could see my reflection. Finished off my white chocolate macadamia cookie, brushed my teeth, and climbed into my bed where Coco and Dolce where already curled up in their respective spots.